title: Lack of exposed ice inside lunar south pole Shackleton Crater.
abstract: The inside of Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole is permanently shadowed; it has been inferred to hold water-ice deposits. The Terrain Camera (TC), a 10-meter-resolution stereo camera onboard the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE) spacecraft, succeeded in imaging the inside of the crater, which was faintly lit by sunlight scattered from the upper inner wall near the rim. The estimated temperature of the crater floor, based on the crater shape model derived from the TC data, is less than approximately 90 kelvin, cold enough to hold water-ice. However, at the TC's spatial resolution, the derived albedo indicates that exposed relatively pure water-ice deposits are not on the crater floor. Water-ice may be disseminated and mixed with soil over a small percentage of the area or may not exist at all.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-85105, Japan.
authors.forename: Junichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haruyama
authors.forename: Makiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ohtake
authors.forename: Tsuneo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsunaga
authors.forename: Tomokatsu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Morota
authors.forename: Chikatoshi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yokota
authors.forename: Carle M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Pieters
authors.forename: Seiichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hara
authors.forename: Kazuyuki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hioki
authors.forename: Kazuto
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saiki
authors.forename: Hideaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Miyamoto
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iwasaki
authors.forename: Masanao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Yoshiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Motomaro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shirao
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamaji
authors.forename: Jean-Luc
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Josset
mesh_terms: D003080:Cold Temperature; D005118:Extraterrestrial Environment; D007053:Ice; D016081:Moon; D018531:Spacecraft
chemical_list: D007053:Ice